Of course we know that it is very hard to get all things equal especially when it comes to rating systems for yachts. Today with very helpful crew I was preparing Passion X for weighing for IRC and ORCi. To do this we needed to remove all the sails and loose items from the yacht. After two and a half hours we had removed most of the required equipment except for regulation safety gear that will be unloaded at dock side tomorrow.
The gear unloaded can be seen in the photo stacked up in the Greenwich Flying Squadron overnight. While the photo of the removed gear is impressive even more impressive is the photo showing the water line with the ship in light mode. Based on the water line I am guessing that we have removed 400 kg of sails and equipment and water. The water tanks were reading empty long before the pump stopped pumping so I guess there could have been 100 kg of water so that still leaves 300 kg for the equipment.
Again I am guessing that the sails and battens are 140 kg as we have three jibs, three spinnakers and a heavy main but that still leaves 160 kg of gear. At this stage we still have the Cat 7 anchor and rode on board and some mooring ropes.
Perhaps for the winter we should remove all the category 4 gear which included a separate set of life jackets, harnesses, tethers, man over board gear etc, etc, etc.
Now this gets back to all things being equal as the rating system only accounts for the unladen weight of the yacht so every item of comfort or safety on board is dead weight. As light as the melamine kitchen ware may be perhaps it is too heavy. Do we need so many knives and forks before the next offshore cruise? Should the spare blanket, and wet weather gear be removed for the winter?
None of this matters if we race a performance handicap system and have the same gear on the yacht from week to week. It only matters if we want to race IRC or ORCi and we get no allowance for cruising comfort or more durable (read heavier) sails.
Tomorrow is weighting day and we will see how our handicap improves.
Some of the gear removed from Passion X prior to weighing.
The water marks on the waterline show how much higher Passion X floats with the gear removed. There is probably another 40 kg to go before weighting.
A real close look at Passion X’s waterline